Clever Crosswalk Squashes Jaywalking, by Making it Legal

Eat your heart out, coppers!

Jaywalking: Everyone does it, so you might as well legalize it. But is there any way to make it less dangerous?

Design to the rescue! Korean designer Jae Min Lim has the clever idea to turn crosswalks into, well, ?J's. By curving the typical Zebra crossing to take up a wider swath of road, you carve out a nice, safe path for pedestrians — one that reflects how they actually walk.

And you'd barely affect gridlock. Sure, cars would have to stop a bit further away from the traffic light. But ostensibly, you'd also have fewer car-on-pedestrian accidents, which can turn a daily commute into something like this.

Lim's concept was shortlisted in the Design for All competition sponsored by Designboom and the Seoul Design Fair. He calls it the Ergo Crosswalk (short for ergonomic), and for added safety, he envisions LED Zebra stripes that tell pedestrians when to cross by glowing red or green. We're not sure about that. It could confuse cars into thinking they've got a greenlight when they don't. But we're all for jaywalking. Sanctioned jaywalking, that is.